Homemade Sausage Rolls

A recent blog post got all of my colleagues and I in a bit of a state. Niall of Lovin’ Dublin put up a recipe for homemade sausage rolls. Within our team at work, we have a bit of a penchant for posh sausage rolls, and had such cravings for sausage rolls after reading it, that many of us did go out and buy some posh sausage rolls at the local deli to satisfy our cravings. To be honest, the whole ordeal left me in a bit of a dither. I had never thought of making homemade sausage rolls before. Could it really be as easy as Niall’s blog implied? Would mine be nice enough to warrant making them from scratch? Well after a few weeks of dreaming of these aforementioned sausage rolls, I decided to make a batch of my own. And oh my god, they were mighty.

I had a bit of an unfair advantage after taking a trip to The English Market before making them, and stocking up on beautiful O’Flynn’s Gourmet Sausages, which are just heavenly. Their stall has such an amazing collection of high pork content gourmet sausages, but in the end I went for their spicy Italian sausages. I had invited a few guests over for the sausage roll eating extravaganza, one of whom is a bit of an aficionado of all things spicy and sausagey. He seemed to love them, so that was a good sign. One of my aforementioned colleagues also gave them the nod of approval. In fact they were so good, that I was only give 90 seconds to take some hasty pictures before they were all gobbled down, crumbs and all.

These are just something you have to make, they are so tasty. You can mix in or out whatever spices you like. They were really good with country relish. I think raisins soaked in a little juice would be a nice addition (if you left out the basil and chilli). These would also be fantastic to make over Christmas if you have guests coming, just make them smaller and thinner to feed many mouths as little canapés.

Sweat down your chopped onion, garlic and chilli (if using chilli) in a frying pan on a medium – low heat in a little oil. You don’t want these to go golden or crispy, just nice and soft. When cooled, set aside in a bowl until cool. When cool, add the lemon zest, basil, fennel and a few cracks of black pepper and a pinch of salt.

Remove the skins from your sausages and pop into the bowl with the onions etc, break the sausages up with the back of a wooden spoon and stir all the mixture together.

Roll out the defrosted piece of pastry on a little flour into two rectangles, to only about the thickness of a coin. Take one of your rectangles of pastry pread your sausage meat along the length of one of the long edges of the pastry. The roll up the pastry tightly, and brush a little bit of beaten egg along the very last bit of pasty to seal it together. Do the same with the other rectangle of pastry. Cut the pastry into little sausage rolls of whatever size you like, seam side down.

Place the rolls on a lightly oiled baking tray and wash the tops of the sausage rolls with a little beaten egg, and sprinkle with the seeds if you are using them.

Pop into an oven preheated to 180C for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden and crispy. Best served with some tomato country relish.

Mix These Beauties With The Other IngredientsStart Rolling Your Meat Tightly Into The PastrySlice Into RollsBake Sausage Rolls for 25 to 30 minutesMy Homemade Sausage Rolls – The Finished Product